Installing Mac OS X Server 1.2 on Lombard 400 MHz Powerbooks with a DVD drive - UPDATED
For this installation process you need a second MacOSXServer machine that can act as a NFS server. You also need a network and a spare IP address on that network.
Special Magic Voodoo
Unplug the battery packs before installation.
Phase 1: The usual installation
After booting from the CD allocate 2 GB or more for the Mac OS X Server installation. If you want to also run Mac OS, let Mac OS use the first partition, Max OS X Server the second.
Install like Apple tells you to install. In the menu bar access Special/Configurations to enable installing on unsupported platforms.
Everything should proceed smoothly for a while. The installer changes the HFS partition into UFS and installs a minimal Mac OS X Server system then reboots.
Now the trouble starts, as Mac OS X Server can not mount the CD and hangs (Reboot failed - Serious Errors) with the option to enter single user mode. Use that option !
Phase 2: Setting the NFS Server up
Eject the CD from the powerbook's CD drive and mount it on your server system. We assume you're using a second Mac OS X Server system here (surely not another Lombard :)). Probably any other UNIX box will be useless, since they can't read the partition information of the CD.
Export the CD UFS filesystem (most certainly mounted as /Mac_OS_X_Server_1.2) using the Network Manager, located in /System/Administration/Applications. In the Network Manager use "File Sharing" to create the NFS export (Shared Directories). Export to the world mapping root to root, for least possible hassle. Follow the instructions of Network Manager and you will be set. Do not remove the CD from the drive now, since that confuses NFS.
And NFS gets confused quickly...
Learn the IP address of your server. You can get this easily in Terminal.app with the command /sbin/ifconfig en0. We will assume for the following steps that the NFS server address is 192.168.2.1
Beware of the Package Installer!
The package installer will accept no failures! After the first complete boot through the installer in all cases will try to install from /RHAPSODY_INSTALL. If there is nothing there it will taunt you with a retry or cancel, which in fact won't help you one bit. Regardless of your choice the installer will erase it tracks, rendering an unsuccessful first boot unusable! You must reinstall.
DVD CD Drive: the source of the problem
It appears that Apple did not extend their Mac OS X Server driver to handle the DVD CD Drives used in the 400 MHz models of the Lombard Powerbook.
Even if you follow these instructions and succesfully install Mac OS X Server 1.2, you will not be able to access the CD.
Phase 3: Hacking
You should be now in single user mode (see Phase 1 - Step 4). First make the root filesystem writable with mount -u -o rw /
Eliminate the bothersome fstab entry with echo "#" > /etc/fstab
Connect your powerbook to the network. Get an unused IP address from the local network (and check that it is unused). We assume that this address is 192.168.2.245 and configure the ethernet port manually with ifconfig en0 inet 192.168.2.245
Try pinging the NFS server with ping 192.168.2.1. If that doesn't produce responses get someone to help you.